A Changed Heart Part 66

"Yes, he has!" wept Cherrie, all her wrongs bleeding afresh. "He's a villain, and I hate him. Oh dear me, I wish I was dead!"

"You don't know half the wrong he has done you and means to do," said Val. "Come, Cherrie, get up, and I'll tell you about it as we go along.

Do you live far from this?"

"No; it's the first house you meet; the dullest old place on the face of the earth! He wouldn't let me leave it; and I know they despise me, and think I'm no better than I ought to be. There never was a girl in this world so ill-used as I have been! Why did he marry me, if he is ashamed of me? Why can't he stay with me as he ought to stay with his wife?"

"His wife!" repeated Val, staring at her as they walked along. "Why, Cherrie, is that all you know about it? Hasn't he told you that you are not his wife?"

"Not his wife!" shrieked Cherrie. "Val Blake, what do you mean?"

"Bless my soul!" cried Mr. Blake, appealing in dismay to the scarecrows in the fields, "I thought he had told her. Why, you unfortunate Cherrie, don't you know the marriage was a sham one?"

Cherrie gasped for breath. The surprise struck her speechless.

"I thought you knew all about it!" said Val; "I'll take my oath I did!

Why, you poor little simpleton, how could you ever be idiot enough to think a fellow like Cavendish would marry the like of you! If you had two grains of sense in your head," said Mr. Blake, politely, "you must have seen through it. He planned the whole thing himself--a sham from beginning to end!"

"It isn't! it can't be! I don't believe it! I won't believe it!" panted Cherrie, recovering her breath. "You helped him, and the minister was there; and I am his wife, his lawful wedded wife. You are only trying to frighten me to death."

"No, I'm not," said Val; "and you're no more his wife than I am. The minister wasn't a minister, but a fellow who played the part. If you hadn't been the greatest goose that ever lived, Cherrie, you couldn't have been so taken in!"

Cherrie's breath went and came, and her tears seemed turned to sparks of fire, as she turned her eyes upon her companion.

"And you helped him to do this, Mr. Blake?"

"Well, Cherrie, what could I do? If I hadn't helped him, some one else would; and, anyhow, you would have run away with him, marriage or no marriage. Now, don't deny it--you know you would!"

"And you mean to say I'm not married to Captain Cavendish?"

"Yes, I do. I only wonder he hasn't let you find it out long ago. He came to me and persuaded me to help him, telling me you were ready to run off with him any time he asked you, which I knew myself. I'm sorry for it now, but it can't be helped."

"Very well, Mr. Blake," said Cherrie, whose cheeks were red, and whose eyes were flas.h.i.+ng, "you may both be proud of your work. You are fine gentlemen, both of you, to distress a poor girl like me, as you have done. But I'll go back to Speckport, and I'll tell every soul in it how I have been taken in; and I hope they'll tar and feather the two of you for what you have done."

"Well," said Mr. Blake, in a subdued tone, "we deserve it, I dare say, but Cavendish is the worst after all. Why, Cherrie, my girl, you don't know half the wrong he has done you. He would have been married three mouths ago, if the lady had not changed her mind and married another man."

"Would he?" said Cherrie, vindictively, between her closed teeth. "Oh, if ever I get a chance, won't I pay him off! Who was the lady?"

"The new heiress of Redmon--Miss Henderson she was then, Mrs. Wyndham she is now. He was crazy about her, as all Speckport can tell you; and he asked her to marry him; and she consented first, and backed out afterward. You never saw any one in the state he was in, Cherrie; and he started off to Canada, because he couldn't bear to stay in the place and see her married to another man."

"But he's back, now," said Cherrie. "I had a letter from him two weeks ago, with a couple of pounds in it. He's the meanest, stingiest miser on the face of the earth, and I have to write and write, before I get enough from him to pay my board. I haven't had a decent dress these six months; and I can't leave the place, because I never have enough to pay my way back. I'm the worst-treated and most unfortunate creature in the whole world!"

And here poor Cherrie's tears broke out afresh.

"And that's not the worst, either," pursued Mr. Blake. "Do you know what has brought him back to Speckport, as you say? Of course, you don't--you are the last he would tell; but it is because he is selling out of the army, and going back to England for good. He wants to be rid of you entirely; and once he is there, and married to some one else with a fortune, many a fine laugh he will have at you."

"Never!" cried Cherrie, wrought up to the right pitch of indignation; "never shall he leave Speckport, if I can help it! I'll tell all, if I was to hang for it myself, sooner than let him get off like that, the villain!"

"But you won't hang for it, Cherrie, if you tell; it's only if you refuse to tell, that you are in danger. Whoever turns Queen's evidence gets off scot free, you know; and if you only do what is right, and take my advice, which means the same thing, you may triumph over Captain George Percy Cavendish yet."

"I'll do it!" said Cherrie, her lips compressed and her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, and the memory of all her wrongs surging back upon her at once. "I'll do it, and be revenged on the greatest scoundrel that ever called himself a gentleman! But, mind, Val Blake, I must be sure that this is all true--I must be sure that I am not his wife."

"It will be very easy convincing you of that, once you are back in Speckport. You shall hear it from his own lips, without his knowing you are listening. Oh, is this the place?"

For Cherrie had stopped before a little farmhouse, garnished with a potato garden in front, and adorned with numerous pigsties on either hand. She led the way to the front room of the establishment; which was carpetless, and curtainless, and unfurnished, and impoverished-looking enough.

"Well," Val said, "this is rather different, Cherrie, from the days when you used to dress in silks and sport gold chains, and do nothing but flirt, and be petted and made love to from week's-end to week's-end. But never mind--the worst's over, now that I've found you out, and you'll have good times yet in Speckport."

"If it hadn't been for you," sobbed Cherrie, "it never would have happened. I hate you, Mr. Blake! There!"

"Now, Cherrie, you know right well you would have run away with Captain Cavendish that time, married or not married. Oh! you may deny it, and perhaps you think so now; but I know better. But he's the greatest rascal that ever went unhung, to use you as he has; and if you had the spirit of a turnip, you would be revenged."

"I will!" cried Cherrie, clenching her little fist resolutely; "I will!

I'll let him see I'm not the dirt under his feet! I've stood it long enough! I'll stand it no longer!"

Mr. Blake's eyes sparkled at the spirited declaration.

"That's my brave Cherrie! I always knew you were s.p.u.n.ky! You shall hear from his own lips the avowal of his false marriage, and then you will go before a magistrate and swear to all you know about that night of the robbery and murder. There is a steamer to leave Charlottetown to-morrow, at nine. Will you be ready if I drive up here for you?"

"Yes," said Cherrie; "I haven't so much to pack, goodness knows! and I'm sick and tired of this place. How's all our folks? It's time to ask."

"They are all well, and will be very glad to get pretty Cherrie back again. Speckport's been a dull place since you left it. Cheer up, Cherrie! There's bright days in store for you yet."

Cherrie did not reply, and she did not look very hopeful. She was crying quietly; and Val's heart was touched as he looked at the pale, tear-stained face, and thought how bright and pretty and rosy and smiling it used to be. He bent over her, and--well, I shouldn't like Miss Blair to know it--but Mr. Blake deliberately kissed her!

"Keep up a good heart, little Cherrie; it will be all right yet, and we'll fix the flint of Captain G. P. Cavendish. I'll drive up here for you at eight to-morrow. Be all ready. Good-bye."

Cherrie was all ready and waiting at the gate, next morning, when Mr.

Blake drove up through the slanting morning sunlight, dressed in her best. She was in considerably better spirits than on the previous day, and much more like the Cherrie of other days, glad to get home and eager for the journey. The lady pa.s.sengers, during the day, asked her if "the tall gentleman" was her husband. That gentleman had a great deal to tell her; of poor Nathalie's death, and Charley's flight; of the new heiress, who had turned so many heads, and had given the worst turn of all to Captain Cavendish; of that gentleman's despair when she married Mr. Wyndham; of the changes and gay doings at Redmon; and lastly, of Nathalie's ghost. This last rather scared Cherrie. What if Nathalie should appear to her--to her, who had wronged her so deeply through her brother.

"Oh, no!" said Mr. Blake, to whom she imparted her fears; "I don't think she will, if you tell the truth; or, at all events, she will be a most unreasonable ghost if she does. You tell all, Cherrie, and Charley will come back to Speckport; and by that time you'll have got your red cheeks back again, and who knows what may happen?"

Mr. Blake whistled as he threw out this artful insinuation; but Cherrie caught at it eagerly, and her face lit up. Charley's handsome visage rose before her--blue-eyed, fair-haired Charley--who had always loved her, and never would have treated her as Captain Cavendish had done. Who knew what might happen! Who, indeed!

"I'll tell the whole truth," said Cherrie, aloud. "I'll tell everything, Mr. Blake, when I'm once sure I'm not Captain Cavendish's real wife. I know I did wrong to treat poor Charley as I did; but I will do all I can now to make up for it."

They reached S---- at dark, and remained there all night and the following morning. They might have gone down to Speckport in the eight P.M. train; but Val preferred to remain for the two A.M., for reasons of his own.

"If we land in Speckport at noon, Cherrie," he said, "we may be seen and recognized. We will go down in the afternoon and get there about nine, when it will be dark, and you can pa.s.s unnoticed. I don't want Captain Cavendish to find out you are there, until I am ready."

So Cherrie, thickly vailed, took her place in the car, after dinner; and was whirled through the pleasant country, with its fields and forests and villages, toward good old Speckport--that dull, foggy town that her heart had grown sick with longing many a time to see.

There were no lamps lit in the streets of Speckport that night. When the waning September moon shone out in such brilliance, surrounded by such a crowd of stars as persuaded one to believe all the constellations were flaming at once, gas became superfluous, and the city fathers spared it.

The vailed lady was handed out by Mr. Blake; a proceeding which considerably excited the curiosity of some of Mr. Blake's friends, loafing around the platform.

"Blake can't have got married up the country, can he?" drawled out Lieutenant the Honorable L. H. Blank to young McGregor. "Who's the woman?"

"Blessed if I know," replied Alick.

Val hurried his charge into a cab, sprang in after her, and gave the order, "Wa.s.son's Hotel."